Twisted by Emma Chase

face or a shadow of sadness in his eyes. I would stay if there was.
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    But his face is blank. Lifeless—like a dark-haired Ken doll.
    And I want to scream. I want to shake him and slap him and
    smash things. I want to, but I don’t. Because if you try and hit a brick wall? All you’ll get is a broken hand.
    So I pick up my bag and lift my chin. And then I walk out the
    door.
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Chapter 7
    The defining characteristic of a Type-A personality is having
    goals and having the strategies to achieve those goals. I’m most
    definitely a Type A.
    Planning is my religion; the To-Do List is my bible.
    But as I reach the middle of the lobby of the building that
    has been my home for the last two years, I freeze. Because for
    the first time in my life, I have no idea what to do next. No
    direction.
    And it’s terrifying. It feels weightless—like an astronaut cut
    from his anchor, drifting out into space. Desolate. Doomed.
    My life revolves around Drew. And I never thought I’d need a
    contingency plan.
    My hands start to shake first, then my arms, my knees. My
    heartbeat spikes and I’m pretty sure I’m hyperventilating.
    It’s the adrenaline. The fight or flight response is an amazing
    phenomenon. It’s action without thought—movement without
    permission from the brain.
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    And mine is in full swing. Every limb screams at me to
    move. To go . My body doesn’t care where, as long as it’s not here. Run, run as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.
    The gingerbread man was lucky. he had someone chasing him.
    “Miss Brooks?”
    I don’t hear him at first. The sound of my own panic is too
    deafening—like a thousand bats in a sealed cave.
    Then he touches my arm, grounding me, bringing me back
    down to earth. “Miss Brooks?”
    The gray-haired gentleman with the concerned green eyes and
    dashing black cap?
    That’s Lou, our doorman.
    he’s a nice guy—married twenty-three years, with two daugh-
    ters in college. have you ever noticed that doormen are always
    named Lou, or harry, or Sam? Like their name somehow predeter-
    mined their occupation?
    “Can I get you anything?”
    Can he get me anything?
    A lobotomy would come in handy right about now. Nothing
    fancy—just an ice pick and a hammer, and I’ll be a happy member
    of the spotless mind club.
    “Are you all right, Miss Brooks?”
    You know that saying, “It’s better to have loved and lost than
    never to have loved at all?”
    That’s a crock. Whoever said it didn’t know a fucking thing
    about love. Ignorance is better; it’s painless.
    But to know perfection—to touch it, taste it, breathe it in
    every day—and then have it taken away? Loss is agony. And every
    inch of my skin aches with it.
    “I need . . . I have to go.”
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    Yes, that was my voice. The dazed and confused version, like
    a casualty in some massive car wreck, who keeps telling anyone
    who’ll listen that the light was green.
    It wasn’t supposed to end like this. It wasn’t supposed to end at
    all. he wrote it in the clouds for me, remember?
    Forever.
    Lou glances at the bag on my shoulder. “You mean to the air-
    port? Are you late for a flight?”
    his words echo in the bottomless pit that is now my mind.
    Airport . . . airport . . . airport . . . flight . . . flight . . . flight.
    When Alzheimer’s patients start to lose their memories, it’s the
    newest ones that go first. The old ones—the address of the house
    they grew up in, their second-grade teacher’s name—those stick
    around, because they’re ingrained. So much a part of the person
    that the information is almost instinctual, like knowing how to
    swallow.
    My instincts take over now. And I start to plan.
    “Yes . . . yes, I need to get to the airport.”
    You know anything